New Zealand should establish a biodiversity credit market to help drive sustainable land use and increase resilience, concluded a report released Friday by the government-appointed inquiry panel into the devastating impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle in February.
The tropical cyclone caused mayhem when it hit the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, much of it created by woody debris and sediments washed away by the heavy rains.
In its findings, the inquiry panel identified a number of issues that contributed to the calamitous impacts, including lax regulations on forestry clearing in catchments and the domestic emissions trading scheme, which incentives monoculture planting of exotic species such as radiata pine over native species.
The panel, led by former MP Hekia Parata, made a number of recommendations to amend the ETS, but also urged the government to introduce a voluntary biodiversity credit market.
“Biodiversity and its life-supporting systems must complement and support diverse land uses, appropriate to the soils and catchment. Any production on erodible hill country must be sustainable forestry and pasture practice, and extremely erodible land and gullies must be retired from production,” the report said.
“This can only be achieved through the right combination of planning controls, infrastructure, investment, and economic incentives.”
Such incentives would require a biodiversity credit market, strategies for co-investment for environmental and economic resilience – for example by leveraging government investment in the Wood Processing Growth Fund – investments in infrastructure, and the development of spatial plans and planning instruments, the panel said.
A biodiversity credit scheme to complement the ETS would direct private and philanthropic capital into positive biodiversity outcomes, it said, adding that the Tairawhiti and Wairoa regions would be well placed to pilot such a market.
In addition, a biodiversity credit market would help promote the critical role of the Maori Indigenous populations as guardians of the environment, the panel said, noting that Maori-managed land has achieved far more sustainable results than many other foresters, especially that of foreign forestry investors attracted by carbon credit opportunities.
New Zealand has already begun work to look at opportunities to develop a form of mixed biodiversity and carbon credit, though much remains to be done before any recommendations will be made.
Environment Minister David Parker said Friday that government ministers would “promptly and carefully” consider the panel’s recommendations, which were made based on almost 320 public submissions as well as interviews with a wide range of experts from a number of sectors and stakeholder groups.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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